From Star Trek to Siri: How the Machine-Reading Revolution will dictate the future

By Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and entrepreneur Oren Etzioni, Special to CNN

updated 4:09 AM EST, Wed December 11, 2013

IBM's Watson system defeated the human champion on "Jeopardy!" in February 2011, surprising the world. Now, a "Machine-Reading Revolution" is underway.

Google Glass may seem futuristic now, but could soon be used in everyday life. It has a miniature projector, touch controls and voice commands that sit on your eyes and ears like glasses. That setup allows wearers to interact and engage with information and the world around them without having to pull out a phone.

Here, an attendee uses Google Glass during the White House Youth Summit at the White House. U.S. President Barack Obama was speaking to the group about healthcare.

Google Now is a personal assistant which delivers customized information it predicts you will want, such as the weather, traffic conditions and the performance of your favorite sports team.

Siri's voice recognition technology was seen as a first step to creating a highly personalized assistant. The questions answerable by such technology is expected to explode, with answers automatically extracted and synthesized from news, web pages, and tweets.

The developers at Apple baked some wit into Siri's otherwise robotic responses -- but could we be headed to a future where technology can provide a more technical answer to this question?

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The revolution now underway

The revolution now underway

The revolution now underway

The revolution now underway

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

IBM's Watson system defeated the human champion on "Jeopardy!" in February 2011 -- surprising the world

But that feat was a precursor to what is being called a "Machine-Reading Revolution," which is underway now

Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and entrepreneur Oren Etzioni reveal five ways it will change how you live

They say it will impact on how we find a hotel, follow our favorite sports team and receive medical advice

Editor's note: Philanthropist and investor Paul G. Allen is the Chairman of Vulcan Inc., founder of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and co-founder of Microsoft. Oren Etzioni is the Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul G. Allen and. Oren Etzioni.

(CNN) -- When IBM's Watson system defeated the human champion on "Jeopardy!" in February 2011, it surprised the world with its unprecedented command of a vast array of facts, puns, and clever questions.

But how will that feat change our lives over the next decade? What does it mean for the future of intelligent machines?

Watson accumulated its wide-ranging knowledge by "reading" the equivalent of millions of books, foreshadowing a revolution in how computers acquire, analyze, and create knowledge.

1. Being a scientific assistant: By 2020, machine reading and understanding of scientific text has the potential to accelerate breakthroughs like helping find new cures to diseases or solutions to climate change.

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence's Aristo project is building software that will enable computers to "learn" from textbooks, ask questions, and draw tentative conclusions. Building on this, and related projects like Watson, this kind of assistant will become an indispensable tool for scientists and researchers.

2. Answering questions: When you ask your smartphone a specific question like "when's the next flight to Atlanta?" or even "what's President Obama's current approval rating?" You'll be able to receive direct and concise answers on your device.

Programs like Siri and Google Now can already answer spoken questions like "when's the next Yankees game?"

Over the coming decade, the range of answerable questions will broaden substantially, and the answers will be based not only on databases of facts, but also on information automatically extracted and synthesized from news, web pages, and tweets.

It's only a matter of time before shopping excursions are truly one-click endeavors.Paul G. Allen and Oren Etzioni

In just a few years, a computer will comb through the reviews for you. Research prototypes like Huang and Etzioni's RevMiner have already shown that computers can read and analyze reviews with high accuracy.

It's only a matter of time before shopping excursions are truly one-click endeavors.

4. Acting as an automated medical assistant: Imagine getting an immediate "second opinion" based on the latest medical studies and experiments right in your doctor's office, or even in the comfort of home.

'I provided the voice of Siri'

Today, any doctor is overwhelmed by the deluge of new medical studies and discoveries.

Ticketed for driving with Google Glass

By 2023, your doctor will have a tireless medical assistant who keeps up with the scientific literature on his or her behalf, and warns against potential errors such as unnoticed drug interactions, dangerous side effects, and more.

Wearable tech

5. Delivering real-time statistics: Within a decade, authoritative statistics on health, inflation, and unemployment will be available in real-time, benefiting both policy makers and the general public.

Today, we often find out about the outbreak of epidemics, health hazards, and economic concerns long after the fact. Yet status updates on social media can reveal important clues about our location, community health, and even employment status immediately.

Research is underway to anticipate epidemics and address other public health questions that today are studied via surveys and slower, less-inclusive methods.

We recently launched the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) in Seattle to carry out basic research in the area of machine reading and understanding of text, which will enable the broader community to pursue the above innovations.

Within a decade, computer knowledge acquired from "Big Text" will be available at any time, any place, and accessible via a dialog that would make the Star Trek Communicator proud and put Siri to shame.